There’s a new credit card balance transfer deal – 0% for 16 months. Is it as good as it looks?
For the last two years 0% credit card balance transfer deals have been a little thin on the ground; is this a sign that competition is returning?
The last couple of years have been tough for credit card customers, with almost 50% of applications for credit cards being rejected and 6 million cards seeing a rise in their interest rates for existing customers. But the signs are that competition could be returning to the balance transfer market. Yorkshire bank and Clydesdale bank (both owned by the same parent company) have launched a credit card deal offering 0% interest for 16 months. How does it compare with others in the market?
Some energy firms are being criticised for rolling customers onto new fixed price tariffs when their old one expires.
If you've taken out a fixed price deal from British Gas, you may have been on a rolling contract without realising it. What are your rights?
British Gas has been heavily criticised by the consumer watchdog Consumer Focus for automatically rolling customers’ contracts from one fixed price deal to another, more expensive one unless they opted out. It actively promoted its fixed price tariffs in the summer of 2008, when wholesale gas prices were rising. At the time they seemed like a good deal for consumers who were worried about high prices. But, when these deals came to an end in December, customers were automatically moved to another, more expensive, fixed price tariff unless they opted out.
The Office of Fair Trading won't continue its investigation into unauthorised bank charges. But you can still complain.
With the OFT acknowledging that it can’t force the banks to reduce their charges, it may be down to voluntary change. In the meantime, should you switch banks?
Last month’s ruling by the Supreme Court over bank charges made it difficult for the Office of Fair Trading to continue its investigation, so its latest announcement is no real surprise. But the OFT says it still thinks consumers lose out. It says banks make a third of their personal banking revenues from unarranged overdraft charges, which can be difficult to understand and not transparent. It’s hoping that banks will make voluntary improvements and the government has said it hasn’t ruled out legislation if the banks don’t address this problem themselves.
